Should The Eagles Be Favored Over The Packers?

The most accomplished team and the most improved team; those seem like the present favorites to take the NFL at the moment don’t they? The Packers have the honor of being the former, having won the Superbowl this past February in Dallas, while the Eagles, by far, have certainly taken on the role of the latter in this frenzied free agency period.

As if he had owed the Philadelphia coach a great debt, Eagles GM Howie Roseman has gone on spree of big acquisitions for Andy Reid and his men, and in the process, has brought all of the NFL’s attention to the city of brotherly love. Naturally, this attention has centered around one interesting question. Can the Eagles challenge the Packers for supremacy in the NFC, and take that step above Green Bay to the Superbowl.

What makes such a question even more interesting is the fact that we saw exactly how these teams stacked up against each other in Wild Card weekend 2011. The Eagles lost of course, but were a good two minute drill away from winning it, and if they had done that, perhaps we would be talking about the Eagles beginning a title defense this year.

This didn’t happen however, and although the game was close, the reality remains that the Packers was able to pull out the win in Philly last winter.

A look at how the Packers beat the Eagles last time out, and subsequently what the Eagles have done to address those issues, could tell us more about this year’s prospects than anything else.

The first thing to take notice of in that game is that the Packers attacked the Eagles defense with an assortment of guys in their passing game. While Greg Jennings is their undisputed no. 1 receiver, Aaron Rodgers completed passes to nine different players with none of theme accumulating over 60 individual reception yards.

What allowed them to do this was the effective running game on the day, as James Starks rushed for over 120 yards. Essentially, the Eagles’ inability to deal with the run was their undoing, as Aaron Rodgers was allowed to simply manage the game for a win, sounds unusual for a man of Rodgers’ talents, but when you consider that two of their touchdowns came on a play-action pass and a simple screen and the fact that out of the 61 offensive plays that Green Bay called, 32 of them were run plays, you can see why “managing the game” is exactly what Packers’ signal caller did.

The second aspect of the game to take note of is the performance of the Eagles’ offensive line. Their performance simply wasn’t good enough. Michael Vick faced a lot of heat when he dropped back to pass, and on too many occasions, the support just wasn’t there for LeSean McCoy to have success against that Packers D, made evident by his failure to reach over 50 rushing yards in the game.

While the Eagles receivers were able to have relative success against the Packers secondary in the open field, as Philly got closer to the goal line, and as the field got shorter, the Packers were able to contain them, and the Eagles were able to score a touchdown just once out of their three trips to the red zone, and that came off of a fourth down conversion in the fourth quarter.

Now if we’re going to accurately evaluate how the Eagles stack up against the Packers, we must consider what impact the new personnel can have on the issues that led to their downfall in January.

The most notable additions, Nnamdi Asomugha and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie will have a big effect on the Packers distributive passing game. The most obvious thing to expect is great amount of single coverage allowing the Eagles to get after the quarterback with more blitz packages and with more frequency.

New pass rushers Jason Babin and Cullen Jenkins will have a hand in that no doubt.
The Eagles have also improved their offensive line with the additions of Evan Mathis, while Ryan Harris looks a good bet to provide better protection on Michael Vick’s blind side. Meanwhile, Ronnie Brown just might prove to be one of the best pick ups of the off season, as you can expect the running back to add even more dynamism to an already explosive offense.

These improvements do have the Eagles in the best position to make a run through the NFC in recent memory but there are two things that can hold them back. The least of these reasons is their linebacking core. It is no secret that the Eagles’ linebackers as a whole are, well, average. And when you consider that much of the Packers’ success in their playoff game came from runs up the middle and passes to non-wideout targets, you why that’s a concern.

Consider this. Of the 180 passing yards that Rodgers threw for in the Wild Card match up versus the Eagles, 100 of them were attributed to running backs and tight end Andrew Quarles, whom you expect, for the most part, to be dealt with by Philadelphia’s linebackers.

All of this is not to say that one game determines how the Eagles will play all the time, or how the Packers will play everytime, but such an example shows that there is a successful formula that was used to beat the Eagles, and what Philly has done in the off-season does not render that formula obsolete. When you factor that in and the fact that the Eagles did not make any major signings at the safety position, (they in fact lost Quintin Mikell) it’s clear to see that if they are going to be attacked in any way, it will be through the middle, and the Packers, along with other teams, are more than capable of doing that.

Even with average linebackers, you could still say that the Eagles are right up there with the Packers as favorites to go to the Superbowl, after all, no team is perfect. But there’s just one aspect that puts Green Bay ahead of Philadelphia, and that’s stability.

When it comes to Andy Reid as coach, that’s as stable as you’re going to get in the NFL, he is the longest tenured coach that is currently in the league. Elsewhere on the Eagles however, there are many question marks. DeSean Jackson is currently holding out, while Jeremy Maclin’s fitness remains a mystery (he’s suffering from…something). Who’s going to start on the O-line is anyone’s guess, and Asante Samuel’s been talking as if he’s got a bone to pick with management (maybe he does need a hug).

You then look at the Green Bay Packers, and there’s just no comparison. The Packers have been as quite as a church mouse during this free agent period, and with good reason. They’ll be getting a lot of guys back healthy again, key players like Jermichael Finley and Ryan Grant are set to return from injury, and this is also a year in which Aaron Rodgers further establishes himself as a top quarterback in the league, along with Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. The Packers are group of guys that, in a lockout shortened season, have the chemistry and continuity needed to pick up where they left of last year, right on top of the podium.

The Eagles have made themselves a tougher match-up no doubt, and you can expect them to be even tougher once they gel, but in the words of NFL columnist Don Banks, the Packers are a “young, deep, and ridiculously talented” team. It is for this reason, that Green Bay remains the favorite to take the crown in the National Football Conference.